Reviewing policy dimensions of socio-economic polarisation in refugee-hosting Amman

This paper addresses under-examined policy gaps in accounts of socio-economic polarisation in refugee-hosting Amman. Existing studies tend to analyse plans and regulations within narrow time frames, offering limited synthesis of how successive frameworks collectively shape distributional priorities across the city’s districts.5 The study reviews literature and policy/planning records from 1907 to 2025, tracing their underlying assumptions and instruments and clarifying how these translate into priorities for service provision and urban investment. While other planning initiatives exist, they are not discussed here due to their limited citywide impact; the focus is on the policies and statutory plans most likely to have shaped urban typologies, the character of Amman’s different expansion zones, and the concentration of services. In doing so, the study provides a theoretical framework to guide subsequent empirical assessment in forthcoming work.